Shattered Silence
by Cuiasodo
Summary: The story of the SH3 disaster told from the pov of other characters.Please review.
1. Going up

Shattered Silence

A Silent Hill Fan Fic

I assume no ownership of any existing Silent Hill characters or monsters that I make reference to, however all original monsters and characters in this story should not by used without my permission

This is my first Silent Hill fan fiction, and my second posted Fan fic. The events in the story take place in the reality of Silent Hill 3. Please note that I am new to the Silent Hill universe if I present any wrong information about Silent Hill. I will create more chapters as I progress through the game. I will discontinue the series if no one seems interested (so please review!) or if the game scares the complete ba-jesus out of me to the point that I cannot continue the game. That being said, I hope you enjoy the story...

All should take care when the silence is shattered, and the creatures awaken.

(Inscription on Tawna's bracelet)

It was mid afternoon in the coffee shop at the shop at the shopping center. Joey began to think that he should leave for home, seeing as how everyone was beginning to leave. The last person he had seen in the coffee shop was a teenage girl, but she had already left, talking under her breath about a nightmare she had. Joey looked out of the window at the nearby street. A strange, rust red fog seemed to have descended on the town of Silent Hill. Joey didn't care. The weather had been weird enough lately that he had become indifferent to it all.

He grunted as the chair he was in clattered on the floor while it returned to its upright position. He picked up his paper coffee up, discarded it in a trash can, and set off into the shopping mall.

He was walking by when a strange man with gray facial hair and a bald scalp approached him. He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the woman's restroom behind him.

"Do you know that young lady?" asked the man.

"What lady?" replied Joey.

Joey could tell that the man was strange so he continued walking on down the hall. He was going to check on his friend, Mark, down at the hunting Depo. Mark had gotten a job there recently and had promised to make sure that his friend got a new model of shotgun they were going to get. Today was the day he had told Joey that they would have them in stock.

Joey had been looking forward to getting the new shotgun. He greatly enjoyed hinting with his father out in the woods. Of course, it was a long drive to the woods where they hunted, but Joey had no problem with boredom. He and his father would talk about how their lives had been going. His dad would talk about how business at the shop was doing; Joey would talk about his performance in college. Both would reminisce about the days when they lived together, and about past hunting trips. But what he enjoyed most of all was the hinting itself. He loved the feel of his finger on the trigger. He loved the adrenaline rush he would get when an animal was in his sights. It was truly the best feeling he had ever had.

Joey thought about this as he pressed the number 2 button in the elevator. The elevator rose for a few seconds, and then suddenly stopped with a jolt. Joey fell down from the sudden shock of the elevator. He rose to his feet and reputedly jammed the number 2 button in the hopes that the elevator would move.

"Crap! How long am I gonna be stuck here?"

Joey suddenly jumped ad a loud thud came from the ceiling. The thud was followed by what sounded like foot steps on top on the elevator roof. Then came pounding as if someone was trying to gain access to the elevator. Joey now was terrified. The pounding persisted relentlessly. Joey's blood had turned ice cold. Another thud was heard and a sizeable dent appeared in the ceiling. The dent vibrated and grew bigger as the pounding persisted. Then the dent ripped open and formed and formed a hole. Joey was face to face with something that could only be described as a dog, though it bore no resemblance to any creature that he had seen. The dog's body was covered in bloody bandages, and where there should have been a head there was only a bulb. The bulb opened to show a deformed mouth with row upon row of sharp, deadly, blood covered teeth. The dog growled. Joey had never been more scared in his life...

Well, there you have it. A classical example of a cliffhanger. Unless you want to be eternally left in the dark about poor Joey's fate I recommend that you review the story. Please give my any advice so long as it does not contain any Silent Hill 3 spoilers. I haven't finished the game yet!


	2. Fighting back

Shattered Silence: Part 2

I assume no ownership over any Konami characters.

I do, however, assume ownership over the characters that I have made up

Well, what can I say? I said I wouldn't write the next part until I got reviews, but I have grown impatient. Writing is my passion and I seldom like to leave my characters in peril for to long. I know, I know, it's only been one day but I couldn't resist. Anyway, don't read this if you haven't read part one, because I do no recapping whatsoever. Enjoy...

Joey looked down the nightmare of a creature's mouth at the rows of blood stained teeth. He would have wondered who this creature's last victim was, were there not the danger of him becoming the creature's next. He was determined to not let this thing kill him. He would get out alive. He would live.

"Get off me you son of a bitch!" Joey yelled as he kicked the creature off him. The monster dog lay sprawled on the floor, squirming. Joey stomped down on its head with a passion, and continued to taunt the monster.

"Yea! How ya like that you gory, squirmy, dog, piece of crap! I'll kick your ass half way across this mall if you try doing that again!"

He continued to stomp down on the creature until it ceased in its movements. A pool of blood began to form on the elevator ground. The elevator doors creaked open to reveal the shopping center's 2nd floor. The mall looked just as it had always, but it felt very different. It seemed completely devoid of any human life. The silence caused the hair on Joey's neck to rise. He tuned and ran to the left, towards the Hunting Depot. He would need that shotgun now more than ever if there were more of those things.

Joey walked through the shop entrance, now staggering and winded. He had run across half the mall to get to the Hunting Depot. As he sat there, he began to reason with himself. Maybe this was all some clever, reality show prank. He began to pace the floor when he noticed his left shoe was sticking a little to the ground as he walked. He lifted the shoe so he could see what was on it.

_Blood, from that...that thing. _Joey thought. _Maybe If I get a closer look at it I can tell if it's fake. It would be silly to be running run a simple trick that someone's playing on me. _

He took the shoe and felt the contents of the "blood". It was red. But most fake blood was red anyway. The liquid felt sticky to the touch. But this could also be another sign of fake blood. He defiantly wasn't going to taste it. If it was fake it was probably toxic. And if it was real...well Joey did not want to think of what would happen then. There was only one final test to do. Joey sniffed the bottom of the shoe. It was only a faint smell. The kind of smell that feels like heat inside your nose. This confirmed Joey's fears. He had been hunting many times, and because of that, he knew the smell of blood well. It looked like he would need that shotgun after all.

Joey began to search around the guns in the store with his eyes when he spotted what he needed on the counter. The shotgun lay there with a key sitting next to it. It was then that he had a horrible thought. What if Mark had been attacked by one of those creatures? Mark was unarmed, and would be taken by surprise if one of those things tried to kill him. Knowing his best friend might be dead, Joey felt a sense of duty to find him and any others in the mall. He walked up to the counter and put the shotgun on his back by use of the shoulder strap that came with it. He then picked up the key and read the writing on it.

"Cabinet 5" Joey read aloud to himself. He then walked over to the cabinet and opened it with the key. Inside were rows upon rows of ammo clips for the shotgun, as well as a note. He began to read the note to himself.

Dear Joey,

Hey! Sorry I couldn't be here when you got the shotgun. I had to go home early to take care of something. Anyway, take as much ammo as you want so long as you pay me back. I might even be able to get you a discount, but you'll owe me. See you later

Mark

_Good. Mark's safe. _thought Joey

He then proceeded to take as many clips as he could put in his backpack. He would need to be ready if there were more monsters. He also thought that Mark would not mind, considering the fact that this was an emergency. Joey then grabbed a portable map of the place, and set off into the mall, in search of others who might need his help...

Ladies and gentlemen, that was part 2. I hope that you enjoyed this feature as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please review as I have yet to know if anybody is reading this. I would hate to write a series that just takes up space on Fan Fiction. Net while nobody reads it. All of your input id much appreciated. Thank you


	3. Enter Rachel

Shattered Silence part 3

I assume no ownership of any pre-existing Konami characters that I use.

Any and all characters made up by me are the sole property of Cuiasodo, and should not be used without permission.

Rachel sat in the fast food shop, alone again. She had waited for 3 hours for her blind date to show up. Guess the joke was on her. This is why she never had liked dating. Too many times she had been stood up by some sleazy jerk who cared about nothing except himself. She was fed up with it. She reached into her pocket to get her cell phone, but here fingers fumbled and she dropped it on the floor. With a clatter it fell apart. Stupid phone! Stupid fingers! Why did she always have to drop things? It seemed as though it was part of her genetic code to be clumsy. She picked up the pieces and went to the only quiet place she could think of to fix her phone...the women's rest room.

Rachel opened the door to the restroom and began to walk over to the furthest stall down. She passed a mirror on the way and looked at herself. She was about 16 years of age. Her hair was red and flowed straight down her back. Here eyes were blue, and did not seem to match her hair at all. It was almost as if she was wearing a wig. After adjusting her hair, she proceeded to the last stall.

Even though Rachel was clumsy, she had a knack for fixing things. All she needed was a quiet place to work and she could put together the most complicated machinery. This is why she chose the women's restroom. It was the most underused restroom in the mall, making it perfectly quiet enough for here to complete her task.

She walked on to the stall, but began to feel hot. She bent over one of the sinks to get some water on her face. She had not closed here eyes for one second, when everything changed.

The room was dark all of a sudden. She looked to the window but found it boarded up. The room somehow seemed older. That was probably because of the grime that seemed to cover everything in the room. All of the stall doors were off their hinges, except for the last one. Rachel walked slowly towards it to see if anyone was there. She knocked on the door.

"Hello? Is anybody here?" she asked the closed door.

No answer. Se turned to walk away but heard a slow, loud knocking coming from the door. She turned to face the door again. The knocking ceased. Rachel felt a sense of unexplainable relief. She turned and walked to the exit. She was about an inch away from the door when the stall creaked open. Rachel looked back. Should she go and look? Against her better judgment, she turned and walked to the door, and glanced into the stall. What she saw her, left her frozen to the spot.

Blood covered everything. The walls, the floor, even the toilet had not been spared from the carnage. Rachel looked on the other side of the door, and what she saw then did not help much either. There, stuck to the door by blood, human hand, severed at the wrist, and still attached to its shirt sleeve.

Rachel screamed. Down the dark hall, something heard her scream. Something inhumane. Something not from this world. And it was big. Very big. And hungry. Very hungry. It longed for the taste of human blood and flesh. Hearing its prey's screams of terror and smelling its prey's scent it slowly trudged towards the women's restroom...

There you go another cliffhanger. I never get tired of writing them. Want to find out what happened to Rachel? Or do you want to leave her fate in the hands of the monster. I can help this girl out...for a price. No, no, no, don't whip out the checkbook. I don't want money. All I want is your reviews. Yes, that's right, some simple feedback is all it will take to persuade me to save her. So please R&R, or Rachel is monster meat!


	4. Rachel's Fate

Shattered Silence part 4

I assume no ownership whatsoever over Konami characters

All original characters in this story are property of Cuiasodo

Fooled ya! Bet you thought I was gonna wait didn't you? Well, as I've said earlier, I love to write and I hate to leave my characters in danger. I'll try to make this chapter longer than the others but I can't promise anything. Enjoy...

The hallway was dark. The walls were spattered and covered in blood. Strange noises echoed throughout the mall. All of the windows were boarded up. All of the exits were sealed. One might think that this was done to prevent anyone from getting in. That person would be sadly mistaken. For in reality, this was done to keep anyone from getting out.

A scream was heard throughout the 1st floor. No one was around to hear, but some_thing_ heard the scream as clear as day. And this thing was big. And hungry. It followed the sound and smell of its prey towards the 1st floor bathroom, where it would corner the unfortunate soul. It would use its battering-ram arms to knock its prey into submission. Then it would get down on all fours and slowly creep towards the helpless creature. After that, it would be all over for whomever it was attacking. Because this creature could not be stopped when it feasted...

Rachel sat in the corner of the restroom, unaware of her fate at the hands of the monster. She was crouched on the ground, with here legs curled up to her chin as she rocked back and forth, struggling to forget the grisly scene that she had seen. She would not need to worry about what lied beyond the stall door for long, for what lied beyond the restroom door was far worse.

There was a pounding at the door as though someone wanted to get in. The pounding was slow, and loud. The door began to splinter under the weight of its assailant's blows. The rusty hinges creaked and buckled. Rust dust and nails shot from the door as it fell. There, standing in the threshold, was the most grotesque thing Rachel had ever seen.

It stood about sever feet tall. Its legs appeared to be nothing but stumps, with a triangle for a body. But its arms were another story. The arms were like punching bags. The left arm had a slit where bloody spine would jut out during a punch, impaling its victim. Its head appeared to be only a circle connected to a stalk. The head swiveled around crazily, as if it had a life of its own. The "face" did not have any features except a crack that ran through the lower part that served as a mouth. The entire body of the creature had the yellow color of age, and was spattered with blood. It emitted an odor resembling that of rotting human flesh.

Rachel was petrified with fear. She could not move any part of her body. Her brain started to go numb due to the stress of the situation. She shivered violently, knowing that she was done for. The creature took slow but big steps towards her. Left...right...left...right. It lumbered towards her and mage a strange gurgling noise as it walked towards here. Its mouth opened wide, eager for the taste of flesh. The monster raised its left arm and the blade extended, ready to stab Rachel. She closed her eyes, awaiting the inevitable pain of her death.

But the pain did not come. Instead there was heard a loud bang from behind the creature, followed by two more sounds of the same kind. The monster stopped and twitched for a few seconds before falling in a heap on the ground. Standing over the monster, with shotgun in hand was a 19 year-old man. He had black hair and wore blue jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt. He was clean-shaven and had no distinguishing marks on his face. Rachel's mystery rescuer held out a hand to help her up. Once she was standing, she began to ask the man questions rapidly.

"Who are you?! What was that thing?! Where did you get that shotgun?! Why did you help me?! Are you aware this is the girl's room?! Why won't you talk?! Are you mute of deaf or mute or something?!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down! Jeez! A simple thank you would have been enough."

Rachel grinned sheepishly, regaining her senses. After a few minutes she began to talk again.

"Thank you. For saving me and all of that stuff. Now can I ask you some questions?"

"You're welcome, and yes, you can ask me anything, though I doubt I'll be able to answer anything if you talk as fast as you just did."

She began to ask him questions and he would answer.

"I'm Joey. I have no clue what that thing was. I got the shotgun from a friend at the Hunting Depot. I helped you 'cause you were in trouble. I don't think it matters that this is the girl's room, and I most certainly am _not_ deaf. Is that a good enough answer?"

Rachel nodded.

"What do we do now?" she asked

"Well, I'm going to see if there are any other survivors and then find an exit. I'm sorry but you're going to have to come with me. First, let's go upstairs. I'll try to get you a weapon. You do know how to shoot a gun, right?"

Rachel nodded at first but then shook here head. She had never even seen a gun in person before.

"I guess you're gonna have to learn fast. It's easy enough anyway. Are you ready to go now?"

Rachel nodded again. She realized that she would have to be brave to get through this. If she panicked when another one of those things showed up, she would just be a hindrance to Joey. Rachel suddenly stopped remembering her cell phone. She had dropped it when she screamed earlier.

"Hang on, if I can get my cell phone, we can call someone."

She walked back to the spot where she dropped it, but it was gone. She began to search frantically for it and to her horror found it beside the monster, covered in blood. Joey walked past her and gingerly picked it up. He tried to dial it but there was no dial tone.

"Phone's dead." he said simply to Rachel. "And so are we if we stick around here longer. Let's go."

The two walked off into the dark hall, unaware of the horrors that lie ahead...


	5. Hunting Depot revisited

Shattered Silence part 5

I do not own any of the Konami characters that are mentioned in the story

All original characters am mine an must not be used without my permission

Here's the next chapter. Before we start I have an announcement to make. I no longer have to rent Silent Hill 3 because I purchased it recently. But I'm probably not going to write past the mall level until I finish the subway part or get awhile through it. I still have no clue how the heck everything went into nightmare mode so please, please no spoilers in the reviews! Anyway, back to the story...

The hallway was dark and silent, much like the rest of this nightmarish world Rachel and Joey had found themselves in. The pair had finally managed to make their way upstairs after much searching. Joey's plan was to get Rachel a handgun, then to check for more survivors, and to finally escape... if there was a way to escape. However, his plan was about to hit a snare. As they approached the Hunting Depot. Joey noticed that something was amiss.

"Where's the door!!!? It was right here a little while ago!" Joey said with a panicked voice. He fidgeted around the wall of concrete with his hands, trying to search for soma type of exit. He noticed something on the ground and bent down to retrieve it. It was a sign, covered in blood.

"Hm, 'CLOSED' it says. Whatever ungodly being created this place had a sick sense of humor."

Joey looked up from the sign to see Rachel staring, her mouth agape, at the back of the sign.

"What? AAAH!" Joey jumped as he saw what Rachel was staring at. One the back of the sign where the 'O' in the "OPEN' sign should have been, was a human eyeball.

"If I ever find the bastard who started this..." Joey trailed off, realizing the he must compensate for the failure in his current plan.

"Ok, here's what we do. We're going to check the area starting with that hallway over there.

Rachel nodded and the pair walked down the hallway towards the door. Rachel tried the handle.

"Locked." she moaned as the handle let out a metallic clank.

Joey heard a rustling behind him. He turned to see another one of those strange giants headed their way

"Time to unlock it, stand back!"

Joey pummeled the door with the butt of his shotgun, making sure it was unloaded so that he did not shoot himself. The monster continually got closer.

"Hurry!"

"What does it look like I'm doing?!"

Pound pound pound

Squish squish squish

The dreaded creature got closer with every pound to the door. The monster shuffled its feet faster, seeing that its prey would be easy to catch. Joey continued to hammer on the door again and again. The terror was rising in Rachel again. She was crouched on the floor. Her head felt as though it was about to split in two. Voices whispered, screamed, and echoed around her. The pain in her temples was unbearable. Her limbs had been reduced to mere jelly. The screaming...the screaming was getting closer. Closer and closer and closer until the scream was Rachel's reality. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Her heart beat at an exceeded rate.

Bang!

Rachel was sure that her heart had burst. But she heard the noise again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sound repeated until she heard something fall in a heap upon the floor. She opened one eye, then opened the other. Blood was leaking everywhere on the floor. Joey as crouched with his hands on his ears.

"I could have sworn that thing was unloaded." breathed Joey in the darkness. "Lucky for us I was wrong. Are you alright?"

Rachel gave her familiar nod and Joey held out his hand. The two ventured down the hall into the next room.


	6. The Hallway

Shattered Silence

Part 6

Author's note: Yes, that's right, people, I'm finally back! Sheesh, what has it been, months? Anyway, I would just like to let my readers know some details. Firstly, I will no longer be able to update _Shattered Silence_ as frequently as I used to due to the fact that I am trying to update other fan fictions that I have posted on the site. Don't think that this means that I will completely stop updating this story. I may also be a little slow on updates due to the fact that I have not completely worked out the chain of events that will occur in the story. That and the fact that I can no longer play Silent Hill 3 at night and retain my sanity at the same time. Secondly, has anyone seen the Silent Hill 3 memory card icon on the memory card menu? If you have, I was just wondering, is that freaky bunny thing an actual monster in the game? 'Cause that thing is just about scarier than the zombie dogs in that game (and that's saying a lot). If it is real, you can expect to read about Joey blasting the heck out of a few in future chapters. On with the story…

A circle of light appeared in the dark hallway. Joey had turned on the built in flashlight in his shotgun. He pointed the light around the hall. His eyes met with the same familiar grimy, bloody walls. The smell of dead flesh hung in the air. It was probably because of this smell that Rachel looked sick. Finding a dead body in the hall did not improve her situation.

"Looks like he didn't make it." said Rachel. She then heaved and bent over facing the opposite direction of the body.

Not being able to think of anything to help her, Joey just looked the other direction as Rachel threw up.

"Do you feel any better now?" Joey slowly asked after Rachel was done.

"I'll only feel better once we get out of this hell hole." replied Rachel.

"Sounds good to me. Ok, this guy might have some ammunition on him, so I'm going to-huh?"

Joey heard a clattering noise from further down the hall, followed by ominous howling that sounded like an unholy chorus.

Joey looked worriedly from the dark hall that the howling had come from and back to Rachel. He was going to have to ask her to do something she wouldn't like.

"Rachel, I'll take care of the dogs. You're going to have to…" Joey just pointed to the body and nodded before he set off in a jog down the hall. Joey could smell the dogs before he could see them. Seized by the grip of battle, Joey grinned psychotically and talked to the dogs. "C'mere, Fido! Daddy's got a dogbiscut for ya!" He cocked the shotgun and opened fire.

Rachel looked at the dead body, trembling. She was actually going to have to touch it! Before she had to do the unthinkable and actually search the man's belongings, she saw a twinkle in the dim hall from out of the man's fist. He had a revolver clasped in his hands. Rachel slowly reached out to the revolver, trying not to think of what the man's dead flesh would feel like on her fingers. But when she touched the man's hand, something peculiar happened. The strange screams and whispers she heard in the hall with the tall monster echoed inside her head. Her hands began to glow yellow. Rachel felt as if she was being lifted into the air by some unseen harness. She was lifted higher and higher and the screams and whispering grew louder and louder until she was lifted up towards the ceiling. Below her, she could see the still form of the man's body and someone crouched over him. To her horror, that someone was her! Rachel's entire view was then encompassed by a bright white light.

When Rachel came to, she wasn't exactly herself. Literally. As she looked down, she noticed that she was wearing a gray suit. She also noticed that she was no longer a woman. Or rather, she felt this. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew who the body she was (for lack of a better term) possessing was. The body that Rachel was in was that of a thirty-five-year-old store manager named Frank Corona. Then, more information flooded her brain. Frank was about 5'8", had black hair (and was slightly balding), had brown eyes and wore glasses, was recently divorced, had a five-year-old cocker spaniel…just about everything that Frank would have known about himself Rachel now knew.

But the strangeness didn't end there. The body that Rachel was in seemed to move of its own accord. Rachel had no control over it. Frank/Rachel (from now on known as Frank for sheer convenience) sat at his desk figuring out his store's budget. He looked over at the digital clock on his desk. The neon green digits showed 5: 25. Frank looked back to the large pile of papers on his desk. It looked as if he would be staying late again. At least he wouldn't have to worry about getting locked in. The janitor staff had provided him with his own set of keys for such an occasion.

Time seemed to run in fast motion from Rachel's perspective for a few seconds after Frank thought about the keys in the bottom of the desk drawer. Rachel watched as Frank's hands wrote speedily on the forms for the budget. The fast motion effect eventually subsided and Frank looked over to his clock again. 5: 30. Frank had only been working for five minutes and he had finished about ten pages of the forms. Maybe he wouldn't be here as long as he thought.

It was after Frank thought this that he heard a noise out in the hall. It was a bit muffled but he could tell it was two people speaking, probably both women. This didn't feel right. No one was supposed to be back here and the mall was about to close anyway. Fearing the worst, Frank stood up, pulled his revolver out of a nearby drawer as well as a few bullets from the entire box of them he had, and walked across the room to the door.

Frank slowly opened the door to see a young blond girl talking to an unseen figure. As he peered through the crack he had made by slightly opening the door he listened to try to catch what they were talking about.

"…Claudia, was it? Did you do this?" the blond asked.

The unseen figure answered. "It was the hand of god."

The blond suddenly collapsed, grasping her head as if she had just received a massive migraine.

"No…wait…" She pleaded.

Frank heard footsteps echo down the hall. The other figure had obviously left. Frank pushed the door open all the way just as the blond got up and ran after the figure she was talking to a moment ago.

"Hey, stop!" Frank called after the blond. He heard the distant ping of the elevator leaving his floor and knew it was too late. Frank knew he would have to call security and tell them that two whackos were running around in the back halls where they weren't supposed to be. He turned to head back to his office only to see what looked like a dog with a bulb for a head fly through the air at him. The rows of jaws in the dog's mouth latched on the Frank's throat and he blanked out.

Joey returned from the fray with the dogs to find Rachel bent over the dead body. She seemed to be very still. Joey walked over and touched her on the shoulder.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Rachel suddenly jumped pack and lie on the floor, gasping for breath as if she had been drowning. Joey's attention wasn't on Rachel, thought. Joey had been focusing on the right hand of the man. He could have sworn that he had seen the hand move. The sudden spasmodic movement of the hand caused the body to drop the revolver clattering on the floor.

Joey looked urgently at Rachel. "Rachel, what happened while I was gone?"

Rachel just pointed at the body. Her constant gasping for breath would not allow here to talk. Joey walked over to the body and spotted a nametag on the body's shirt.

"Frank Corona"


	7. Questions Without Answers

Shattered Silence

Part 7

Frank's keys were extremely helpful for Joey and Rachel. The keys and knowing that nearly every door was open to them was the only comfort, however. The entire mall still retained its gory, age old look, and silence reigned in the halls. The silence was worse than anything, because it cloaked the prescience of monsters. Nearly three times the pair had been ambushed because they had been lulled into a false sense of security by the quiet, only to hear the grotesque squish of one of the tall monsters approaching them, or the blood curdling howl of the dogs, or the new, terrifying squeal of these strange, two headed monsters that remained suspended in mid air, constantly whirling their four blades in each direction as the traveled.

The ground floor was a dead end; Joey already knew that. So, the two had made their way up to the second floor via a broken escalator to find something shocking…

Joey warily approached a corpse of one of the dogs. He kicked it several times to make sure it was dead before giving Rachel the all clear. Still, Rachel held back, not wanting to leave the security of the small alcove she had found. Joey gave up on it and decided to check the carnage himself.

There were three gaping holes in the chest of the monster's body and a remaining one in the head. Joey instantly recognized the holes. All four were from a firearm, probably a handgun. It was a good thing that Rachel was hiding behind the alcove, because it would have looked strange to see Joey give a crazed smile at the dead body. In reality, it wasn't the dead body that made him smile, but the concept here. The bullet holes in the body meant that there was someone else alive in the mall, moreover, someone with a gun.

Joey was just about to call Rachel over to explain his cause of joy when he found that she had already crossed past him to the door several feet away.

"This door wasn't here before. This just used to be a wall." she said aloud, almost to herself.

Joey shouldered his gun, thinking nothing of it. "Well, just twenty minutes ago, this place wasn't swarming with monsters."

Twenty minutes…had it really been that long? It seemed like such a long time to be kept in such a hellish place. They had been trapped in this twisted world for nearly twenty minutes, enough stress from it for a life time, but it had only taken a singe second to shatter their lives. Joey almost laughed aloud. He was thoughts were beginning to sound like those of a poet.

Rachel got closer to the door and squinted her eyes, trying to decipher the blood red writing etched into the strange stone door.

She read aloud, "_Pilling up the 300th day and night, from beyond the door, cries of pain are heard. And the end is…_" Rachel stopped there. "I can't read the rest."

Joey was now beside her, looking at the rest of the inscription. "Just as well. It's not exactly bright and cheery and full 'o bunnies."

Something glinted in the dim light out of the corner of his eye. Looking down, he found a pale while pearl. What was that doing here?

Joey bent down to pick it up, slinging the shot gun over his shoulder but always keeping his finger on the trigger least something happen. For all he knew, that pearl that he was about to pick up could spring up and devour their souls or something. Monsters appeared out of nowhere in this place, so why not?

At the same time, Rachel spotted a tiny indent in the door. She felt it with her finger. It looked as if something went inside.

"Something goes here." She said, voicing her thoughts aloud.

Joey placed the pearl inside the hole without a second thought. "That's oddly specific…"

The stone block dragged itself out of the way, revealing a dark, ominous doorway in its place. _Dark and scary, just like everything else here…_ Joey thought to himself.

"Shall we?" he asked Rachel.

She only nodded. It was clear she wasn't very keen on going down into another dark hole.

The pair cautiously walked into the next area, keeping alert every step of the way. Rachel was now armed with Frank's revolver, and by the way she clutched it in her quivering hands, it was clear that she didn't want to have to use it.

There was a loud reverberating noise like someone shaking a rusty ladder. Aside from that, there was no other sound, and the darkness in the area didn't help morale any. The only thing that set this place apart from everywhere else they had been was that it was a wide, open conclave rather than an enclosed dark space. This made the suspense worse.

_Wide space means nowhere to hide, and a wider area for a bigger monster to fit into…_Rachel thought.

Step by step, they made their way to the center of the conclave, where the walkway just dropped down into nowhere. To be more specific, it dropped out into the central section of the hell-mall and then into a dark hole in the floor. There was an ominous iron ladder leading off of the pathway and down into the hole.

Joey slung the gun around his back and began to descend when Rachel heaved him back out with great difficulty.

"What the hell are you doing?" he protested.

Rachel looked at him as if he were brain dead. "Hello? An unsteady ladder in a dark room descending down into a pit of nothing? Do you even watch horror movies?"

Joey's hands immediately went on his hips. "But how do we know that isn't a way out of here?"

Rachel did likewise. "How do we know something big, bad and with teeth isn't down there?"

They both jumped as the heard it. It was a kind of cracking the pierced the still air and blocked out the rusty shuddering noise. The same sound was heard again and again until Joey recognized the noise.

"A pistol…" he whispered under his breath.

An ear-shattering screech echoed all throughout the conclave. Rachel again cowered on the floor as Joey pulled out his shotgun. And then, there was nothing to see but pure white…

They were back in the mall. All was as it was before. The conclave had gone from pitch black to dimly lit. Joey's eyes picked out the shape of a blonde girl running off down below, the same girl he had overheard in the coffee shop.

"Hey, wait!"

His shouts did nothing to stop her. Joey dragged Rachel to her feet and set off for the stairs…

In a mad dash they tackled the concrete steps, dreading with each pitter-pat of their feet, the dark world they were just in would come back. After being in the dark for so long, the mall that they were in now seemed even less real than the hell they were just in.

But the light held and they made it to the front doors without harm. Rachel could have cried for joy. It was over, it really was all over…

Still, something lingered. Neither Rachel nor Joey could shake the feeling that they had gotten themselves involved in something much bigger, something that went deeper than the strange occurrence of a shift in reality at the mall on an otherwise ordinary day. There were too many unanswered questions. What had started all of this? Where were they when they went to that nightmare otherworld? And who was the blonde they saw running off into the distance?

They didn't have answers for any of the questions, but a clue to the last one slipped just out of their fingers as they came upon the front doors. Both of them heard shouting, and argument taking place. Rachel recognized the voice of the blonde from her strange vision, and Joey picked up on the voice of the other. It had been the balding man that he had run into, the one who asked if he knew anything about "that young lady".

But by the time they had arrived on the scene, it was too late. The blonde was gone, and the balding man could barely be seen exiting the light of the mall, heading for his car in the parking lot.

Joey pounded the glass door in frustration. He wanted answers, and it looked like fate wasn't willing to give him any. Rachel went over to comfort him, laying a still trembling hand on his shoulder.

"It might be better if we just put this behind us, at least for now." she said, trying to sound reasonable. "It's late, and after that I don't think I'll be able to sleep as it is. Maybe we can both go down to the police station in the morning and tell them what happened."

"Who'd believe us?" Joey snapped. "What would we say anyway? 'Hey, officer? I was at the mall yesterday when a gang of zombie dogs attacked me along with their friend beef-lump arms and turned the place into a haunted house worthy of an Oscar.' With a story like that, they'd lock us up for narcotics or something."

"We can at least try. They might believe us if we tell them the right stuff and not sound like we're exaggerating." This didn't seem to improve Joey's mood. Rachel took a different approach. "After that, we'll do some research. Maybe there's something in the library or the archives about bizarre crap like this happening. We could go there tomorrow, too, the two of us…"

Joey's face broke into another one of his smiles, the one that looked 90-percent comforting and 10-percent crazed. It must have been the way he lifted his eyebrows when he did it. "I'll take the tabloids, you take the gothic literature section. We're bound to find something. Anyway, can I give you a rid back home?"

She shook her head. "No. I know it sounds weird, but I just wanna be alone after that. I don't have a car, but I got her from the subway, so I'll have a way to get home."

Joey was reluctant but he finally caved. He slowly pushed the door open and cast Rachel a final wave before setting off into the dark.

"Meet at the station around nine o'clock!" he shouted through the glass as he left.

Rachel nodded and slowly turned to face the descending stairway to the subway. She ran a finger through her hair. This entire night had been confusing. First the monsters, then that weird vision and now everything being back to normal as if nothing happened. It didn't make sense but…

This chilled her more than anything, but some part of her seemed to know about all of what's going on. It seemed familiar, as if it was something she had been taught in school that it would happen.

_They've come to witness the beginning. The rebirth of Paradise, despoiled by mankind…_

Why did it all sound familiar? Rachel didn't know, but she was going go find out. Step by step, she descended into the darkness, letting her mind wander in search of the possibilities.


	8. Subway

Shattered Silence

Dark, pitch black. But only nearly. Small wells of light populated the tunnels, beams from above radiating from the fluorescent lights, which seemed to blur as you moved around. Light and dark co-mingled in a mosaic.

She was alone now. An hour or possibly two (it was hard to estimate) in that mall had changed her. Amazing how such a small time frame could affect you. One minute, you're concerned about your date standing you up. The next, you only worry about survival.

Rachel couldn't help but think of monsters looming in the darkness around her as she sat on the bench, wondering why it was taking so long for the subway to arrive. She felt cold despite the warmth of the passage, and in the back of her head she heard that long, piercing scream that had come out of nowhere and hadn't left since, back in the mall when she had lost control. Rachel tried to close her eyes, to null the pain, but found nightmarish visions awaiting her in the supreme abyss behind her lids.

It was all a dream, she kept telling herself, just some demented children's story. None of this could happen at all. None of it should have. But it had. Trying to spirit it away wouldn't get rid of the fact that there were monsters in that mall, and she had nearly died.

Funny how people talk about near death experiences. A lot of them claim something to the effect that nearly losing their life made them value it even more. They always felt rejuvenated, ready to take life by the horns, carpe deum, and all that. Rachel not only thought about how close she had come to death, but _why_ she hadn't died? Would it have been better if that thing in the bathroom had just stabbed her, instead of sitting here, having those pictures of those people and those things repeat in a loop in her brain again and again and again and again, and…

Stop. Her eyes opened. She couldn't live like this. She was alive now. Wasn't about to seize the day or any kind of bull-crap like that, but she was going to get home. Rachel focused on that, held it in her mind, framed it in gold like a prized portrait. Eyes on the prize. She'd get home first and then sort all of this out, probably by calling a shrink the first thing the next day.

She jumped as the train screeched into the station. Rachel looked around. That was odd; it wasn't this dark before. She was about to ask herself why everything had an eerie red tinge to it before the doors to the train slammed shut behind her. Too late to turn back now, she had wandered inside, and the vacant subway sped off into the dank tunnel.

It wasn't entirely vacant, however. There were three other people on the train; a man in a business suit and tie, a lost looking teen in a Rolling Stones T-Shirt and jeans, and a third person who could only be described as…sort of dirty.

Curious, Rachel turned to the teen.

"Excuse me?"

He turned, looking sort of blank for a moment.

"Are you…are you lost?"

Whatever blankness that had been inside of his eyes before vanished. "Nope, at least I don't think I am." He realized she was staring. "Sorry, been having a bit of an off day. I've just been so…tired all of a sudden, know what I mean?" he chuckled softly. "Funny how one simple thing like that can ruin your day, huh?"

"Yeah…"

He noticed that the red-haired girl was staring at the floor. The teen turned and gave his full attention to her.

"Are you-"

"Yeah, I'm ok…" she finished for him.

"Bad day too, huh?"

"You could say that."

He gave that sort of thin, spread out smile that was like shrugging with your lips. "Well, at least we're still alive, right?"

"Yeah, guess so…"

"Name's Mark." Mark offered his hand, which the red haired girl took.

"Rachel."

"Nice name"

"Thanks."

Silence.

"So, you came from the mall, right?" Mark knew how to end an awkward silence, unfortunately for Rachel.

"Hm?" She was still out of it a bit.

"You came from the mall, right?" he repeated.

"Oh…yeah…"

Rachel suddenly got all sullen and depressed. Mark had just met her and now it seemed like he had put her in a bad mood. So much for those finely tuned people skills.

"Sorry, didn't mean to upset you or anything-"

"It's ok…"

"Was the sale at _Gordon's_ really that horrible?"

He had shot for a joke. It worked. A smile peaked through the clouded gloom in Rachel's face. There was the happy girl he sensed was buried inside.

"No, it's just…stuff, you know?"

Stuff. Sounded like you're usual issues: boyfriends, friends, getting gum on your shoe, the works. Just typical problems, that was all that bothered her. Mark began to calm down. At least it was just something small bugging her.

"It'll get better, promise."

Rachel was touched that someone cared or seemed to care. It was little but good enough. A lucky penny on a bad day.

The car got quiet aside from the rhythmic coasting sound of the tracks and Rachel took a seat. That was when she noticed that the other two guests on the car were a bit…abnormal. Business suit man, aside from looking like something straight out of the Matrix, minus the sunglasses, was standing stark still and staring off into space. Dirty Dude was convulsing enough that at first glance Rachel though he was having a seizure. Second glance showed what it really was: fear. Something had the guy scared, and he looked like he wanted to avoid Sharp Dressed Man in particular. Mark noticed the dirty man, just as he was shrinking further back into his already tiny seat.

_Guess I have to go to work again. A nice guy's work is never done!_

Contrary to Mark's inner monologue, Rachel did the Nice Guy's work for him. She was sitting beside nervous/dirty guy a heartbeat before Mark had thought of it. Rachel was nice, too. Mark was beginning to like her.

He had taken up chanting now, low, quivering words that struggled to slide out of his mouth. He was barely audible above the noise of the car, which made his nervous tick all the more unsettling. It was the kind of quiet thing that you heard part of and strained to hear the rest of, just because of the way human curiosity works.

"Are you…?" 'Alright' never came from out Rachel's mouth, because she finally caught a snippet of what he was chanting.

"Piling up the three-hundredth day, piling up the three-hundredth day, piling up the seventh day…cries of pain, horrible, the cries of pain…beyond the door…" He giggled, reminding Rachel of those birds that crazy people are named after. Loons, she thought they were called.

"Where did you hear those words?" She knew those words. They were from a place that she'd rather not know, a place whose memories should be buried.

The entire time, the Dirty Man hadn't acknowledged her, and right now was no exception. She tried again.

"Where did you hear those words?" And then a different, drastic approach; "What is after the three-hundredth day? 'Cries of pain are heard, and the ending is not…is not…"

Rachel couldn't remember the rest. Actually, because of the gunk on that door back in the mall, she hadn't been able to read anymore than 'the ending is not…' That was all she knew.

"No-no, n-no!" He protested. "You must have read it wrong…Piling up the 300th day, from beyond the door, cries of pain are heard. And the final destination…the final destination…is real…though it's…it's. I-t-s n-n-n-n-n-n-o-t-"

"_Though not a blessed beginning_."

The Dirty Man screamed, but Rachel's head spun around before even that. Before Mark even called out to her, she turned. Before she felt its presence in the car, she looked. She saw it, just after she heard the words that came from neither her nor the Dirty Man or Mark.

Sharp-dressed-man was no longer with them. In his place was something about the same size, but with absolutely no semblance to the previous occupant of the car. It was the same height; seemingly 5' 7'', but hunched over so Rachel and Mark were never really sure. Completely naked, no genitalia, and covered in head to toe with charred skin that pulsated in places. Its head was devoid of eyes and a long, thick tongue like that creepy guy from Spider Man lolled from a toothless mouth. A bizarre, caterpillar-like organ hung from the thing's neck where the tie of the man had been.

Mark sidestepped immediately as it made a b-line for Rachel. The girl stood her ground, raising her forearms in a boxer block as the being came down upon her. Her eyes closed again and again ready for death, Rachel jumped all the more when she felt Mark shove her out of the way. They traveled two feet before colliding with the back of the subway car

Mark landed on his face. Rachel wasn't that lucky. She got a front-row seat to the bloodbath.

Post-mutation Business Man hadn't stopped during his assault on Rachel. Quite to the contrary, he didn't even react to her absence. Instead, he stopped a foot short of the Babbling Man.

_Please don't look over here, please don't look over here…_

He didn't. The caterpillar moved. It jumped erect and began to shift-inside out, revealing a dark, bad smelling (the odor was strong from even six feet away) tube of teeth. The caterpillar shot at the man's chest and burrowed, turning up chunks of meat and a red/black cloud. Dirty Man howled louder and louder still until the monster tongue began the second part of the job. The glistening pink membrane from the jaws of the beast soon covered the victim's mouth, muffling the death cries. It slid up and out of the monster's mouth, sliding around and around the man's head, not stopping until the tip came to his eye-socket. It paused, and like a mosquito looking for a place to drink, seemed to sniff around for the entry point. The pink thing came to a halt at the edge of the eye. Found it. The tongue's end became a needle point and dove into the man's eye. Tongue and living neck-tie were now feasting as the Dirty Man went into his now silent death throes.

Rachel turned away, causing Mark to make full contact with the floor. She had no intention of watching as the victim turned pail, life-blood pulled out of him by a predator. Poor man…no one even heard his screams by the time he was half-way drained.

Mark had not been as adamant to get away, and shoved Rachel aside as she scrambled for the door. Mark made a neat one-two step for the monster, a soldier walking to his death.

She fruitlessly tried to halt him, thankful of being able to just remember his name through the black fog rolling into her head.

"Mark, what are you doing?"

Mark stopped at that, stiff as a tin-man. He raised his right arm, just as stiff. At two feet away, the stench was unbearable. But you didn't miss from two feet away.

The first thing that struck Mark was that his front suddenly became very wet. And warm. A spatter of dark crimson dyed his old shirt, obscuring the Rolling Stones insignia. He was grossed out and astounded all at once, witnessing the monster fall to its naked knees and collapse.

The revolver slipped from his hands, clattering to the floor, an abandoned tool of the savior. Had he shot another human, he might have hurled. But sympathy for the killed did not apply to monsters.

Rachel was a step away, looking down at Mark without the slightest inkling as to how he had shot Business Man.

"You dropped that," he remarked, indicating the gun.

"I-"

The fragment echoed, replaced by the screech of metal on metal, the subway coming to a stop. Rachel nearly tripped. Mark didn't move. She leaned over, picked up her firearm and pocketed it again, this time making sure it was in her good pocket (she really did need new pants). As if by some silent signal, Mark came back to the surreal world. He got to his feet and marched, as machine like as before, to the door, out onto the station. Marched just as he had when he killed the mutant.

Rachel, moving more organically, followed.

"You…"

Another fragment. Nothing interrupted her this time, although Mark answered the unasked question.

"It's fine. That SOB or son-of-a-whatever-the-hell-it-was killed that man. Kinda hard to have remorse for killing a killer."

She didn't say anything, although she wanted to. A smile, a nod, a grunt even, but someone had put her voice box on mute.

"…I guess…"

"_I guess…_" as in he guessed he was right or, _"I guess…" _about something else? She never found out, although it was her own fault for interrupting him.

"We'd better get out of here."

She knew now more than ever that the basic rule of survival in a situation like this was to move on. Ignore what had just transpired. Ignore the blood, the screams, the images of death, because if you thought about something for too long, death especially, it often happened.

Mark nodded and started on ahead before he realized that Rachel would want to lead. He didn't move like an automaton anymore. She was thankful. One less thing to give her the heebie-jeebies in this not-so-fun house.

"Damn…" Third fragment. Mark scored another one.

"What?"

"That was one hell of a thing."

Rachel shrugged and forced a smile for his benefit. "It's a good thing you weren't at the mall."

He stopped. "What?"

She ditched the show of looking casual. "The mall…the same thing kinda happened there."

He looked right at her. Through her, probably. "Really…damn" and then, "Do you think…you think you're being followed or…?"

Mark wasn't sure what made him say it. Neither was Rachel, but somehow she felt that it was a good guess. Something was following her…

"I don't know, but we have to get out of here." she answered, virtually echoing Joey. She hoped he hadn't run into a similar problem in his truck. An imaged of twenty of the worm-tie mutants surrounding his car and Joey going down in bursts of shotgun fire flickered in her head like she was watching an old zombie film at a drive in, grainy image, tarnished screen and all. Rachel pushed it away, shut off the projector. She had no time to worry when her own horror movie was unfolding before her.

The station was much like all others in Portland; comprised with cement and brick, drafty, dim and a bit damp sometimes. It didn't make for a good place to spend awhile. The effects of the terminal were magnified tenfold by the ominous ambiance of the moment and the place that they now found themselves in. Like a nightmare personified, the unique, bile-tasting feel of dread perforated the air and sank into both their lungs. Now it was uncomfortable and terrifying.

The stairs that usually lead up and into the city were blocked off by random refuse and scrap metal. It was all piled up in a makeshift barricade intended to keep something out…or in. Whatever the purpose, there was nothing salvageable in the way of ammunition or armaments. Mark, remaining weaponless, followed Rachel as she braved the unsettling station all the way to the other side.

One brown door set into the wall. Two would have been less imposing, but there was only one door. Singular, solo, a dark sentinel that watched over the cement waiting room. Rachel supposed the window set into it looked a bit like a glassy white eye peering down at them. They looked at each other, then back at the door. Revolver raised, Rachel shoved the handle down and pushed the door open, expecting an irritated squeak to emanate from the door.

It did not come, but her readiness for all things gloomy and scary did not go without use. There were stairs, a wide case of them, all descending down further into the chasm of the underground. Wordlessly, the pair began their reverse climb, Mark now taking point, leading Rachel. Despite the fluorescent lights, whose hum could still be heard, the passage got darker. A red filter was dropped over everything and bit by bit the scenery became a rusty orange. Familiar grime and dirt spotted the walls amongst the ghastly pulsating red lumps that had appeared from nowhere and began multiplying.

Rachel bit her lower lip to fight back a scream. Desensitized as she was from her previous encounter with this other-world, it still frightened her. Mark kept doggedly on the path. How he managed to not even flinch as the red blobs on the wall moved faster and faster was a mystery.

He reached the push-open door at the bottom of the staircase before her. Mark stopped a moment, peered back at her through squinted eyes (she hoped it was just because of the overwhelming redness that he was squinting and not because Mark was going to mutate into a monster like Business Man) and nodded, soundlessly asking, _"Are you ready?"_

Rachel returned the gesture and adjusted her shooting arm. Mark turned back to the door, mashed down on the handle and crossed over into the gloomy red…


End file.
